Tonight, after what was a lovely but emotional day spent with some of the people in the world whom I love the most, we came home to a quiet house and the night sky.
Our growing children, Steve’s aging parents and us, in the middle and growing older – we are hurdling through time, perhaps made most apparent by children now taller than we are and parents no longer able to remember. Allowances which used to be made for the grandchildren are now made for the grandparents, and in the middle we navigate and sometimes simply step aside.
Tonight, after settling in, I went out front to take out the trash and on this clear, cold and beautiful night, I gazed into the night sky to find the stars unchanged from when I looked up as a child. The same patterns and constellations, the same beauty and awesomeness, the same peace and endless comfort still radiate from above. And the stars that my parents and my brother and my grandparents and all of those whom I have loved and lost and all of those who celebrate far away today share the same night sky, unchanged since my youth, unchanged from one day in my teen years when my brother told me about the Northern Lights on a night when the sky shimmered.
Tonight, I know that when I look to the sky, I share the same night sky with all of those I have loved, and for that I am grateful.
Nancy Wiley writes. 